We arrived at Turtle Bay, aka Bahia De Tortugas, at 0800 hrs this morning. We motor sailed the last 5 hours after sailing "Wing on Wing" for 38hours without tacking once. From what I understand that is a rather rare thing to be able to do. The wind was with us the whole way until we turned to come into land. We were generally 25-35 miles off shore for most of the time.

When we got into the bay and anchored, we had a nice breakfast with a delicious cinnamon coffee cake and then an incredible shower. The shower was only 1 ? gallons of warm water but I got to use some real soap. Getting the last 3 days of sun tan lotion and grime off with more than just a wet wipe was a wonderful feeling.

The ride into the town was scenic. The church is right next to the fuel dock and local bar. Rich and I went for a walk thru town to explore. There are no stop lights and only dirt roads. Some of the cars have socks over the windshield wipers to keep the dust off the windshields. It looks like there was a fishing industry here 30-40 years ago that has not been used and is just rusting away. The people are very friendly. I got to give a little boy who was in his Halloween costume some candy.

We walked up a hill and found the town's cemetery. It has a mixture of stone mounds, tiled rectangle mounds, mosoleums, and fenced areas with crosses. As we were leaving, I found a really great rock by the side of the road. We hear "Senor, Mister, Senor.wait please". Uh oh.Did I pick up something I shouldn't have??? He motioned us to follow him to a grave surrounded by concrete bricks painted in bright neon purple and turquoise. He starts moaning and saying that this was his father Gordo's grave and he did not have enough money for a head stone. OK, I need to back up a little. I am thinking he was a "he", but Rich is not so sure. It could have been the smudged lipstick or the perfectly plucked eyebrows, or??? His voice was very low..so???? He said that his rich brother would not give him any money. He swore in half Spanish and half English that his brother was crazy and he was the good one in the family. If only he would some how get the money for the headstone then his father could rest in peace. I was still standing there with the rock, but he said nothing about it, so I did not put it down. He finally saw that we were not going to help his cause-though I would have just for the pure entertainment value of the whole show-so he saw another group of people and bid us a cheerful farewell as he/she walked over to them. We then walked down the hill and had a beer and chips and salsa. We started to walk to the dingy dock and I had to run back to get the rock that I had left under the table. Rich was asking me (OK, more like grumbling) the whole time about where I am going to store this heavy thing on HIS boat. I got this horrible, shocked look on my face and I said that I could not abandon Gordo's headstone now.. He laughed and I still have the rock.

Rich is presently working on getting the auto pilot installed. Hand steering the 356 nautical miles (409 statute miles) was tiresome even with 4 people on board. My shoulders and arms are sore.

We will add pictures when we get an internet connection. We cannot send pictures over the SSB and I forced Rich into taking a photo of me with Gordo's head stone in front of a dockside memorial to Gordo.